Copyright 2004 by M. Uli Kusterer Fri, 29 Nov -1901 11:06:32 GMT Comments on article blog-dvoraks-predictions at Zathras.de http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm witness_dot_of_dot_teachtext_at_gmx_dot_net (M. Uli Kusterer) witness_dot_of_dot_teachtext_at_gmx_dot_net (M. Uli Kusterer) en-us http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment4 http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment4 Uli said: "I have to disappoint you, but the Mac is more popular in the US than in Europe"

Yes, I agree with you completely, I am sorry the comment in a way that was not clear enough. I obviously did not mean to claim that Macs are more popular here in Europe :)

I meant that for you and me, being both students in Europe, that kind of a trend can be much more visible than in the USA where Apple has been more popular than here so small changes are not as visible. In any case the switch campaign was not a success at least if we count the amount of switchers it generated. OS X, being an UNIX with a proper GUI, has worked much better at least in the (IT) student and IT professional segment. (I too do like Ellen Feiss but I did not switch because of her :)

Sure, if we go back to Sculley or Apple II days Apple has lost _a lot_ of market share but I was not thinking that far back. Even during the last few years their market share has been falling or being stable according to some news articles based on IDC numbers. Unfortunately I did not find any good summary of them. It just shows that the student or IT pro segment are not the whole market.
http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment3 http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment3 Uli Kusterer writes:
Of course, the above doesn't mean Apple hasn't been successful in growing their market share, but considering where it was back in the Sculley days, and how deep it dropped, that's not that surprising. Among computer savvy people their mindshare seems to have grown, which is the first step before those tell their relatives and friends to have it grow even more.
http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment2 http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment2 Uli Kusterer writes:
Err... I have to disappoint you, but the Mac is more popular in the US than in Europe. At least here in Germany, most people don't even know what a Mac is. Only few people know that there's an alternative to Windows, and most of those who do are Linux geeks. Those usually know Macs.

And Apple hasn't been more popular "from the beginning" either. In fact, Michael Spindler only became CEO of Apple because he was so successful enlarging Apple's market share in Europe back in the day.
http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment1 http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/blog-dvoraks-predictions.htm#comment1 You are correct, Dvorak did not predict Boot Camp and while I normally don't like the guy I must give him props for not claiming so himself. He said in TWiT.tv or a similar podcast that Boot Camp was not what he was thinking when writing the first story. It's other people who are claiming that.

I can also relate to the claim he is making about "Switching". Sure, among some groups, like students and laptop users, the usage of Macs has apparently gone up[1]. I assume this has happened more in Europe than in USA, given Apple has been much more popular there from the beginning. But at the same time Apple's share of worldwide PC sales has been quite steady or even gone _down_ according to some sources. So, surely some people have switched, but it has not been enough to give Apple bigger market share, thus it is quite OK to say that "nobody switched" especially when you are exaggerating a bit and trying to get readers :)

But sure, Dvorak is probably as much in the dark about Apple as the rest of us, even maybe more so given he is a such a die hard Windows guy and does not see why OS X is special (no, it's not the looks :)

[1] It really is not very easy to extrapolate things one sees to a good estimate of the reality, for various reasons